BHUBANESWAR: Three agitating forestry students of Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) were on Tuesday night admitted to Capital Hospital after they fell unconscious at the dharna site in front of the Assembly.The three are Sonali Sio, Chinmayee Satpathy and Debi Prasad Rout.Along with other forestry students of the agriculture varsity, they were on an indefinite strike for the last 45 days demanding recruitment to the Forest department. They have been demanding that the B.Sc.(Forestry) degree be made the minimum qualification for the range officer cadre of the department. However, with the State Government yet to look into their demands, they have been continuing their agitation.Their other demands include immediate recruitment of forestry graduates as forest range officers against the one-third backlog vacancy that has been there since 1994 and 50 per cent reservation for the post of Assistant Conservator of Forests.Despite large-scale vacancies in the department, many graduates in forestry are reportedly unemployed. “We got a list of vacancies in the department through Right to Information Act (RTI) and found that there were at least 628 vacancies.The last recruitments, 12 in total, were made in 1994.Since then, there have been no recruitments,” said Manoj Kumar Behera, a student. The students also claimed that they would be able to serve better than those selected from the general stream of graduates and trained for one or two years as this degree programme covers all aspects of forestry and the duration of the course is four years.Manoj added that the situation prevails even as other States like Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Jammu and Kashmir have issued notification for 100 per cent reservation of forestry degree holders for appointment as range officers. The students have decided to continue the strike until Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik or the Chief Secretary ensure the fulfilment of their demands Denied Jobs, Agri Engineers Up in ArmsBHUBANESWAR: Up in arms against the State Government for not providing jobs to the agricultural engineers, the students of College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology (CAET) under the Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) have been on a strike for the last 12 days. They are demanding creation of additional posts under the Directorate of Agriculture and Food Production keeping in view the increasing number of students passing out of the college.CAET is the only institute in the State that provides agricultural engineering course. In 1997, the students had filed a case in the Orissa High Court against the State Government wherein they had sought assistant engineer posts on a par with the degree holders from other engineering streams.Since then, the Government had stopped providing jobs to the agricultural engineering students. However, in August 2011, it was decided that the CAET students could now be given jobs under the directorate. But no step has been taken till date in this regard
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